


the simplest truth

by tehtarik



Series: super quick tumblr fic [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 14:39:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14114523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tehtarik/pseuds/tehtarik
Summary: The blind man did not seem to be aware that Baze was also on the bench.Or maybe he did, because just as Baze got up to go, the blind man said, “Has it occurred to you that you may need to rethink your life choices?”--The nature of Baze’s job required him to make simple, clean kills. Fix his telescopic eye upon the enemy and take them down. It wasn’t always like that.





	the simplest truth

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on tumblr

**1.**

The nature of Baze’s job required him to make simple, clean kills. Fix his telescopic eye upon the enemy and take them down. It wasn’t always like that.

 

 

**2.**

A strange city fixed them together.

Baze had a job, and when that was done, he caught three flights to locations chosen at random and sat at a park. It was the New Year; a garish lion dance troupe was pounding its rhythm through the interior of a phone shop. Good luck and prosperity for business.

A blind man came and sat down beside him on the bench. He was humming the song, _Shanghai Beach_. Baze did not like the song. The blind man seemed to shuffle a bit closer to him, thumping his white cane on the ground each time he hit the accented notes.

The blind man did not seem to be aware that Baze was also on the bench.

Or maybe he did, because just as Baze got up to go, the blind man said, “Has it occurred to you that you may need to rethink your life choices?”

“No,” said Baze, because he believed in simple answers.

“Are you going back to your hotel room?” the blind man persisted. He laid the cane across his lap and glanced at Baze’s direction. His eyes were all white.

“How do you know I’m staying at a hotel?”

The blind man ignored his question. “I don’t think you should be languishing alone in a hotel room. On the first day of the New Year as well!”

Baze got up to go. He was tired of this man.

“Maybe you could invite me along?” the blind man said.

“No,” said Baze, because his belief in simple answers had not wavered.

“You’ll need your wallet. Your access card is probably inside.”

Baze spun around just in time to catch his wallet which came arcing neatly through the air toward him.

“You picked my pocket!” he nearly shouted.

The blind man said nothing. He put on a pair of designer sunglasses.

 

**3.**

The next job was five thousand miles away. The target was in a sleek conference centre, giving a presentation to the chief executives of several multinational corporations. Baze focused the telescopic sight on the target’s head.

Someone else came into his arrow-sharp line of vision and hugged the target. A long hug. Much kissing on both cheeks of the target’s. The target flapped his hands and tried to push this other person away. Baze couldn’t believe it. It was the blind man.

The blind man was escorted off the premises. But Baze had failed his assignment.

He found the blind man leaning outside a convenience store, eating a Magnum.

“Do you want some?” the blind man offered his Magnum to him.

“I’m going to have to kill you,” said Baze.

The blind man smiled widely. He pressed a slip of paper into Baze’s palm. “My name is Chirrut. And you can find me at this address.”

Then he strolled away, eating his ice-cream.

 

 

**4.**

Baze did not go to the address. The truth: he didn’t care if the blind man was dangerous. Nor did he care if somehow a bullet found its way into his body, into his chest, his skull, his neck. He rather liked the idea of poetic justice.

 

 

**5.**

One of his enemies found him after all. An old employer who sent an armed gang into the apartment he was renting. They sprayed bullets all through the place, and one of them got lodged in his ribs. Baze lay on the ground, awaiting poetic justice.

It never came.

Instead, there was a thwack of wood, and the crack of a skull splitting. A body falling to the ground. Another body. And there was another round of gunfire, and then silence.

It was the blind man, Chirrut.

“Life choices,” said Chirrut, rather matter-of-factly. “And one of them right now is lying still and not trying to get up. You’re bleeding too much.”

Recovery was slow and painful. Chirrut didn’t go anywhere. Baze had undercooked rice and overboiled vegetables to eat for two whole months.

 

 

**6.**

“I owe you my life,” said Baze. “But I’ll never understand why you did it.”

“I don’t understand either,” Chirrut agreed. “You wouldn’t even invite me to your hotel room that first time.”

 

 

**7.**

They moved from city to city. Rented rooms and did temporary jobs. Or at least Baze did. Sometimes they fucked. Sometimes Baze wondered why they fucked. He didn’t ask, though. He let Chirrut guide him through it, let Chirrut hold him down, roll him on his back. Kiss him on the forehead when they were done. He let Chirrut continue to undercook the rice and overboil the vegetables until one day, he didn’t. He got up from the mattress to where Chirrut was standing by the stove, caught his wrist and said, “Let me do it.”

Chirrut smiled at him. “About time.”

 

 

**8.**

Chirrut lay on the ground, breathing heavily, his face knotted in pain. Blood poured from the wound in his thigh. He wouldn’t be able to fight for awhile. It probably wasn’t life-threatening.

And the worst of the danger was over, anyway.

But Baze couldn’t stop the sudden tears, the shame. Guilt, even as he cleaned the wound. “They were after me. How many times will you put yourself in front of me, because of my own deeds?”

Chirrut reached up a hand. “Lean forward.”

Baze leaned his face into Chirrut’s hand. Chirrut slid his palm and weak fingers across Baze’s face, his cheeks, the back of his head. “You have the head of a person,” he concluded.

This was such a stupid thing to say. “Glad you noticed.”

“And the brain of a pig.”

Baze laughed. He didn’t want to. But Chirrut had just reached into him, pulled that thread of laughter right out of him, unstitched him from the inside.

“You’re not blind like me,” said Chirrut, and he wasn’t even smiling. “So look. See this.”

He took Baze’s hand in his, and brought it to his lips, and kissed Baze’s bloody fingers. Smearing blood over his own mouth.

“See?” Chirrut said again, and he closed his other hand around Baze’s. Held him, even as he lay wounded. And Baze saw.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> 人頭豬腦 - means, a really stupid person. literally: human head, pig brain.


End file.
